As they shook hands and sat down across from each other in the stark office, Rufus knew that history was being made... Chronicling the true life of Canadian newsman Lukin "Rufus" Johnson, this never-before-told biography explains how one man went from labouring across the Canadian prairies and through the farms of Ontario to becoming the first Canadian newsman to interview Hitler. After beginning his career as a journalist only to be pulled away to serve in World War I, Rufus was not yet aware that his inevitable return to journalism would eventually lead him to interview the man who initiated a world war of his own. After grinding out years in the journalistic trenches, working for the Vancouver Province and Southam newspapers, Rufus was desperate for a headline-making scoop. He began to cover international events and newsmakers, simultaneously infuriating his superiors while gaining their respect. He was eventually given the magazine section of the Province and was later dispatched to London to lead their first overseas bureau. Rufus's stories from abroad were wildly popular back home in Canada, but as European skies darkened, his investigative reports left readers in no doubt about the danger of a new war on the horizon. And while they digested his interview with Hitler in November of 1933, they also heard of his mysterious disappearance aboard the ship back to England, never to be seen again. Rufus's untimely and mysterious death cut short not only a writing career that significantly affected the Canadian journalistic and political landscapes, but cut short a life that was worthy of its own headlines.

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Colin Castle was born in England in 1936 and after army service in Berlin, studied history at Oxford and became a teacher. In 1964, he and his Canadian wife, Val, married in London but came to raise their children in BC, where he taught history in West Kelowna schools for thirty years. This book is the story of Val's grandfather, the one she never knew.